a brand new stray

[worn_wings]

Who: Daryl Dixon + open
Broadcast: Not intentionally but maybe you'll get lucky channel surfing sometime?
Action: The Tourist, assorted planets thereafter
When: 5/5 and onward

1. tourist arrival

He doesn't get his bearings at all. Everything when he wakes up is shining and unfamiliar and the only comforting thing is it's definitely not the Sanctuary, as surely as it's not any of their familiar settlements. He gets his back up against the wall, and then he's somewhere else.

The burst of confetti and music just suffices to confuse the hell out of him, so he ignores the chocolate pudding and ducks back against the wall, dead silent and kind of panicked and doing his best not to show it.

Left to his own devices, eventually he'll slink off into the rest of the ship-- looking for anything he can use as a weapon and watching for threats.


2. planetside in the yadrolla system

It's been literally years since he saw a functioning city, and the first time he touches down on one of the more populous planets, it's totally overwhelming.

The upshot of this is he'll be a little friendlier to Fleeters, because at least if someone's vaguely familiar they're closer to being a known, safe quantity. Mostly he stays to the side-streets, watching like it's all new.

Eventually he manages to get a lift to one of the wilder worlds-- not because he wants to sight-see, though incidentally he might end up spectating some of the outdoor events-- but because it's better than being stuck on the ship. Feels too much like a trap-- nowhere to run.

Later in the month he'll take up fishing and hunting-- there may be food on the ship but he's not sure how far he trusts it. Besides, he's good at this, there's some comfort in grounding yourself.


3. choose your own adventure

[ want something different? We'll make it work! ]

Comments

[worn_wings]

[ He hums, a soft assent-- more than that; yielding to her point. Carol has to be as suspicious, as unwilling to trust new people as he is. If she's more or less satisfied that they're on the same side here...

Well, he'll try, anyway.

He doesn't quite manage a smile, but he's visibly relaxed, just a bit. ]

Glad it ain't just me.

[ What he means, really, is he's glad she's here-- but it seems kind of an asshole move to say that. Still, asshole or not, he really is glad to see her. ]

[perservering]

[ She's glad, too. She wasn't alone before, of course. Not when Carl and Maggie were there already. But Carl and Maggie aren't Daryl. It's silly, and unfair to all of them. But she can be herself with Daryl more than she can be with anybody else she knows. Having him there is more of a relief than she even imagined it would be.

She just nods, agreeing with the sentiment because she'd hate for Daryl to be stuck here alone. ]

So are you gonna shower or will I have to hose you down? [ She grins a little. ]

[worn_wings]

[ it feels greedy and unfair to be so glad to see her, all the more because he'd resigned himself to the loss. She was all right; or close enough; and that's what mattered. It's why he lied and how he lived with it.

Now, he ducks his head a bit. ]

Ain't that bad.

[ He'd scrubbed himself pretty damn thoroughly after the Sanctuary, that still shows. But she doesn't know all that and he doesn't plan to say a word. ]

[perservering]

It's not that bad at home. Everybody is a lot cleaner here. Because it's a lot easier to keep clean.

[ She bumps his shoulder with hers. And then leans her head on his shoulder. Just letting herself feel happy for a moment, and try not to get too mad at herself for feeling that way. ]

[worn_wings]

[ All he can do in response to that is grunt, because he can't exactly disagree... But the notion of fitting in with everyone else is never particularly compelling, and honestly feeling out of place like this, he's likeliest to lean on being stubborn and refusing to go along with what's normal on principle. It's a stupid reaction, and he knows it. Feels like showing up in Alexandria again, only a lot stranger.

But he's disinclined to argue, because it is so much stranger here. And as much as he's glad to see her, he's more glad that she's glad. Back home-- not that she wasn't glad to see him, he thinks, but he can't be a comfort when he's a reminder of what she's left behind. ]

No promises.

[ You can scrub the zombie apocalypse off hum, but really, there's only so much he can be cleaned up, he figures. But he'll try-- or at least try to try. ]